Post a piece of art you could write an entire campaign based on

Best Selling RPGs - Available Now @ DriveThruRPG.com
TristramEvans

TristramEvans

The Right Hand of Doom
Administrator
Moderator
Joined
Apr 24, 2017
Messages
35,002
Reaction score
103,043
As per the title, doesn't matter where the art comes from, just any single image that, for you, ignites the fires of your imagination and you could spawn an entire campaign or gameworld from the ideas it generates.

My first one is "A Mountain Walks" by David Ho...

51188402604_e772c0c13a_o.png
 
Great idea for a thread!

Will have a think but that pic just screams of an element/destination from an Invisible Sun campaign or something of that ilk.
 
Last edited:
A collage of backdrops from Thundarr The Barbarian cartoon. The dated quality of the animation can obscure that the show featured some great artwork and character designs.

ruins-six-pack.jpg


Also, it's not itself that remarkable, the cover of Warpworld had a deep influence on my roleplaying for many, many years. The system was dreadful. It takes "overcomplicated" to a whole new level, the setting was the mess, but the illustrations spoke to me.

BTRC+Warp+World.JPG


I could also post any number of panels from superhero comic books, but where would that end?
 
PolarBlues said:
A collage of backdrops from Thundarr The Barbarian cartoon. The dated quality of the animation can obscure that the show featured some great artwork and character designs.

ruins-six-pack.jpg


Also, it's not itself that remarkable, the cover of Warpworld had a deep influence on my roleplaying for many, many years. The system was dreadful. It takes "overcomplicated" to a whole new level, the setting was the mess, but the illustrations spoke to me.

BTRC+Warp+World.JPG


I could also post any number of panels from superhero comic books, but where would that end?
Click to expand...
I totally agree with you on Thundarr (and Kamandi the Last Boy on Earth also by Jack Kirby) and the unfulfilled promise of WarpWorld. I came across Warp World a bit after Time Lords, I remember sitting with a buddy and his wife at Ft Lewis in the mid 90's trying to make Time Lords characters (the players would rate themselves in the various attributes as you played "you"). We never did get past character creation although some of the art and the stories in some of the writeups for the play test characters were very evocative. Warp World was a disappointment, I didn't like the rules suppressing technology to be honest but I grew up with Gamma World (and The Morrow Project).
 
How about Starry Night...

1655556895425.png

I find it quite creepy, always have. The black otherwordly tower made up of living, writhing tendrils. Reaching up to the mad chaotic roiling heavens while the peaceful village below awaits its doom. Who can save it?
 
This work, a modern work inspired by the murals in the Mogao Caves, never fails to get my imagination soaring with the kind of cosmology that leads to figures like this being in a setting. I could extrapolate from this one image to a whole campaign world.1655564081301.png
 
Rich H said:
How about Starry Night...

View attachment 46648

I find it quite creepy, always have. The black otherwordly tower made up of living, writhing tendrils. Reaching up to the mad chaotic roiling heavens while the peaceful village below awaits its doom. Who can save it?
Click to expand...
I played in an excellent Vampire: the Masquerade campaign themed around The Starry Night.
 
Brock Savage said:
That is the greatest video known to mankind and could also be used as the basis for an interesting RPG campaign
Click to expand...

I agree! I just said not the visuals in reference to the art Simon posted. Big early Muse fan. I loved them; Hysteria and Plug in Baby are two awesome tracks as well.
 
Last edited:
Lets just go for the full Hieronymus Bosch experience. I don't know where that campaign is going, but it's going to be a hell of a ride.

2560px-The_Garden_of_earthly_delights.jpg

Idea 1 - The campaign is set on a multi generation space ship, where the passengers have completely forgotten that their garden world is just one deck of many.
 
Brock Savage said:
Could you share the elevator pitch, please?
Click to expand...
Ruined city full of refugee mutants from a magical apocalypse. This is where the PCs, working for as librarians retrieving lost knowledge, are sent to recover what remains of a library. The mutants were generally shunned/hated for a whole host of reasons... but a most of that is just prejudice and fear.
When we played, the PCs ended up helping the refugees, and this started a war.
I think Clive Barker's Nightbreed was the main inspiration... as well as Tom de Haven's Freaks' Amour.
 
Last edited:
TristramEvans said:
1655666548707.png
Click to expand...

Campaign/Adventure: The Eye of Winter

It called out to mankind, promising us answers to all our dreams, but all it gave us was a waking ceaseless nightmare; a world locked forever in the grip of Winter. For eons mankind struggled to survive, scraping a meagre existence, only there to serve The Eye, until the Awakened Ones rose up from our reverie and worship. Drawn together from across the four corners of this frozen, changeless and broken land. Only together could they see the path. The path that would lead them to The Eye and its destruction... or humanity's.
 
Nobby-W said:
1655669526891.png
Click to expand...

Jet Pac: The Dead Zone!
Often hailed as one of the greatest 8-bit games of all time, Jet Pac is back as a tabletop RPG!

The release of the Omega Virus swept across the Vertis Sector, transforming the human colonies into poisonous lands that only the dead could survive. As PCs of the League of Rangers, stranded on Vertis IV, you must first escape from the lands of the dead and only then can you begin to uncover the conspiracy that lays at the heart of the Interstellar Alliance. Don your Jet Pacs! Lift off in 5... 4... hang on... did you hear tha-??!!?

Incidentally, that artist is Peter Elson and its a great piece of illustrative art. Space left at the top for the title, etc and really strong dynamic composition. Great diagonal of the laser shot and the clawing hands reaching up. Think it was originally the cover to a Harry Harrison book; back when we got decent covers on books rather than the dull boring tripe we invariably get nowadays. Top stuff though.
 
Last edited:
I used this concept by sabin-boykinov as the basis for my Xothique campaign I ran with RuneQuest 6:

R1SOr3L.jpg


from - https://www.deviantart.com/sabin-boykinov/art/concept-art-209496497

... and this is what I turned it into with my hilarious over-planning and preparation, which none of the players used! It was the first time I had run a RPG in 30 years ... Yemar was the campaign home-base. It did turn into a successful 2 year campaign, still the most enjoyable I've yet run.

9Io397g.png
 
BigJackBrass said:
View attachment 46743
Harold Piffard’s frontispiece for A Honeymoon in Space by George Griffith. The scene isn’t quite as charming as it looks, since they’re about to drink poison.
Click to expand...
Suicide, seriously? I could have sworn it was a Victorian Space Age Karen complaining that their minority neighbors are lowering property values.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Banner: The best cosmic horror & Cthulhu Mythos @ DriveThruRPG.com
Back
Top